Open Call Analysis: FORTIS 2nd Open Call

Up to €250,000 to deploy and scale human-centric robotics Solutions

FORTIS Open Call #2 offers up to €250,000 per project to organisations that can deploy, integrate, or scale human-robot interaction (HRI) technologies either within FORTIS’s own industrial pilots or in entirely new civilian sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, or airports.

About FORTIS

FORTIS is an initiative developing solutions that help and support humans at work by augmenting the workforce while keeping people firmly in the loop. The consortium’s approach to human-robot interaction (HRI) is holistic: it works on enabling robots to interact with human workers in a natural, human-like way over long periods, combining both physical and non-physical communication channels.

FORTIS pursues four main objectives: developing a human-centric solution for modelling and analysing humans; developing a flexible, agile multi-robotic solution that interacts with humans; integrating a safe and trustworthy HRI solution that optimises operations for both humans and robots; and demonstrating all of this through pilots in construction, railways, and manufacturing.

The project’s tangible expected outcomes span three areas of impact: human-centric (better modelling of human behaviour and more intuitive collaborative robots); robot-centric (new testing and experimentation capabilities for HRI scenarios); and trustworthy interaction (improved efficiency, safety, and reduced need for costly physical prototyping).

About FORTIS Open Call #2

This second Open Call expands the deployment and reach of FORTIS technologies through two topics:

Topic OC#2.1 – Pushing towards the deployment of FORTIS.

This topic engages industry, research, and societal players to integrate third-party systems into the FORTIS framework, adapting and extending existing FORTIS toolkits for real-world deployment within the project’s own pilot environments. It is organised into 8 technical subtopics, grouped into three areas:

Human-robot collaboration: Optimisation of HRC/task allocation; Flexible Interface Digital Twin; HRI Watchdog (assessing ethical, safety, privacy, cybersecurity and regulatory risks, including EU AI Act and Cyber Resilience Act compliance); HRI Activities Digital Twin; Omnideployment of the FORTIS solution (smart orchestration of AI modules across edge and server infrastructure).

Human and AI perspectives: Ergonomics-Aware Human State and Interaction Context for Adaptive HRC; Interfaces with XR (AR/MR smart glasses as a bidirectional interaction layer between operators and robots).

Robotics and AI perspectives: Trust-Aware Multi-Sensor Localisation and Mapping for FORTIS robotic platforms.

Topic OC#2.2 – Exploiting the FORTIS solution in other key sectors.

This is an open topic aimed at end-users and SMEs outside the current pilot domains. Applicants must identify a relevant civilian HRI use case and integrate two or more FORTIS ROS packages into their own solution, focusing on technology transfer and cross-sector adoption rather than new technology development. Priority sectors (at least 50% of this topic’s funding) are agriculture, mining, forestry, and fishing, with healthcare, events, airports, and shopping malls also eligible. Construction, manufacturing (material delivery/AGV logistics), and railway maintenance are explicitly excluded from this topic, since they overlap with FORTIS’s existing pilots.

Why apply to FORTIS Open Call #2

The call has an indicative total budget of €3,142,746.92, split as €2,065,373.46 for Topic OC#2.1 (up to €250,000 per project, for at least 8 projects) and €1,077,373.46 for Topic OC#2.2 (up to €170,000 per project, for at least 6 projects).

Funding covers 100% of costs for non-profit organisations and 70% for SMEs and other for-profit entities and is paid as lump sums released at the end of each of three programme sprints.

Beyond the funding, selected projects get dedicated administrative and technical mentoring and support in identifying exploitable assets and building a market-adoption roadmap.

Who can apply?

Eligible entities: research organisations/universities with a track record in the relevant sectors, and mid-caps, SMEs, or startups whose core business involves HRI technology development.
Sectors of activity (for non-academic applicants) include computational/artificial intelligence, autonomous and intelligent robots, robot learning and programming, human-robot interaction, IoT, human factors, and biosignal processing. Topic OC#2.2 additionally opens participation to SMEs and end-users in agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing, healthcare, events, airports, and shopping malls.
Consortium requirements: proposals must be submitted by a multidisciplinary consortium of 3 entities minimum for Topic OC#2.1 (multi-country, at least 2 different eligible countries) or 2 entities minimum for Topic OC#2.2 (single-country consortia allowed). Every consortium must include at least 1 SME, and non-industry partners (universities/RTOs) cannot exceed 30% of the total project budget.
Exclusions: each entity may be funded only once across the whole call, and prior FORTIS Open Call #1 beneficiaries face a lifetime cumulative cap of €200,000 across all FORTIS calls.
TRL requirement: proposed solutions must enter at TRL 4–5 and reach TRL 7 by project completion.

How to apply to FORTIS Open Call #2

Applications are submitted exclusively through the F6S platform, using the FORTIS proposal template alongside the online proposal form. All documentation must be submitted in English and uploaded electronically in PDF format; incomplete proposals are disqualified. Applicants may edit and resubmit before the deadline, and an entity may act as lead applicant on only one proposal.

For standard companies, only the last-submitted proposal under a repeat lead enters evaluation, while different departments of the same university or RTO may each submit under separate topics/subtopics, though only one project per institution can ultimately be funded.

Important dates

Submission period: 1 September 2026 – 4 November 2026 (17:00 Brussels time).
Eligibility and technical check: 5–17 November 2026.
Proposal evaluation: 17–27 November 2026.
Online interviews: 30 November – 4 December 2026.
Announcement of results: 14 December 2026.
Programme start (Sprint 1): 11 January 2027.

Proposal requirements

Proposals must address the eligible activities defined for their chosen topic: for Topic OC#2.1, adapting and validating specific FORTIS toolkits against one of the 8 subtopic technical requirements, each with its own defined KPIs; for Topic OC#2.2, integrating at least two FORTIS ROS packages into a new civilian use case and delivering a full validation package.

Regardless of topic, all funded projects must produce evidence-based deliverables: for OC#2.2 this explicitly includes a Validation Report, a KPI Report, Technical Documentation, and Demonstration Material (plus a Dataset Collection where applicable). Every proposal must also commit to at least one poster or article as part of mandatory dissemination and complete a self-assessment ethics questionnaire.

Evaluation and selection process

Proposals go through an eligibility check, followed by external remote evaluation by two independent experts from the Expert Evaluation Board, and finally an online interview for the top-ranked proposals. Each criterion is scored on a 0–5 scale against three weighted criteria:

Excellence & Innovation (40%). Clarity and ambition of objectives, degree of innovation, and quality of proposed KPIs.
Impact (20%). Exploitation strategy, market potential, and environmental/social/economic contribution.
Implementation (40%). Quality of the work plan, team capacity and expertise, and budget appropriateness.

The minimum threshold is 3 out of 5 per criterion, with an overall minimum of 9 out of 15; proposals below either threshold are excluded. Ties are broken first on Excellence & Innovation, then Implementation, then Impact.

For the interview stage, the 2 highest-ranked proposals per subtopic under Topic OC#2.1, and the 12 highest-ranked proposals for Topic OC#2.2, are invited to pitch; interview scores then replace the remote evaluation score entirely. Rejected or ineligible applicants have 3 working days to lodge an appeal focused strictly on the evaluation procedure, not the scientific merits of the decision.

Additional support beyond funding

Selected beneficiaries join the 10-month FORTIS Programme #2, divided into three sprints (3, 3, and 4 months respectively), with payments of 30% + 30% + 40% released after a positive review at the end of each sprint.

Throughout the programme, each project is paired with an administrative mentor (F6S, for progress tracking and administrative support) and a technical mentor matched to the project’s specific topic expertise, who provides hands-on integration support and helps unlock joint scientific publications or IP pre-agreements with FORTIS partners. F6S, as exploitation lead, also works with the technical mentors to help beneficiaries identify exploitable assets and build a tailored exploitation plan.

Final thoughts on FORTIS Open Call #2

This call rewards two very different but equally concrete profiles. For Topic OC#2.1, it suits robotics and AI teams, from RTOs to SMEs, that already have a working technology (digital twins, XR interfaces, localisation systems, task-allocation engines) and are ready to adapt it into FORTIS’s construction, railway, or manufacturing pilots at TRL 4–7.

For Topic OC#2.2, it’s a strong fit for SMEs and end-users already operating in agriculture, healthcare, or similar sectors who want to pilot proven FORTIS robotics components in their own facilities without building the underlying technology from scratch.

In both cases, the combination of substantial lump-sum funding, structured technical mentoring, and access to real FORTIS pilot infrastructure makes this a well-supported route to reaching higher TRLs and real-world validation.